Timers OR Time Cards: Which one is right for your business?

Historically every Time Tracker account offered timers and timesheets as a way to track time for payroll and billing. However, in March of 2019 Time Tracker released time cards; the new default setting for a basic Time Tracker account.

Now both new and existing eBillity customers have the choice between timers OR time cards (you can only use one OR the other). The default is managed by the administrator and can be changed at any time within ‘settings’.

TIP: Existing customers will need to change from timers to time cards, only new customers will receive time cards as a default.

So how do you decide which one is right for your business?

The simplest way to answer your question is with a question. What are you tracking time for? Invoicing or Payroll?

Timers are best for tracking time for invoicing

If you need to track time for client invoicing Timers are the right option for your business along with our +Billing account, and the good news is that timers are the default setting for our Time Tracker +Billing and +Legal accounts.

Let’s take a look at the key features of timers:

Down to the second time tracking with the ability to start, stop and pause one or multiple timers

The option to switch between projects, activities and clients in seconds

The ability to mark time as billable or non-billable

Mark the (time entry) billing type as hourly or a flat rate

Mark the (time entry) billing rate as standard or overtime

Option to add the time entry to an invoice

Now let’s compare Timers to Time Cards.

Time Cards are best for tracking time for payroll

If you have a team of people who need to track time for payroll then you need to test drive time cards and here’s why. Time Cards are the best way for employees to track time for payroll and is the default time tracking option in a basic Time Tracker account.

With time cards employees can:

Clock in/out of their shift, take (paid or unpaid) breaks, switch between projects and monitor their hours within each pay period to see if they’re tracking at a standard or over time rate.

Managers (admins) can:

Create alerts so employees are notified when their break is almost over, prompting them to return to work

Set employee time thresholds to automatically calculate overtime and double time rates

Setup alerts for admin and employees so they receive notification before overtime and double time occurs

Set time rounding (up or down); for example, if an employee clocks in at 08:55 am the time entry can round up and be recorded as 09:00 am.

More food for thought

Now that you can identify the difference between Timers (Time Tracker +Billing) and Time Cards (Time Tracker) there are a few additional things you might want to consider before you make a decision.

But something to note before you do: every Time Tracker account includes free mobile apps for iOS and Android, as well as timesheets, admin approvals, geolocation tracking, reporting and integrations. However, there are a few things that are unique to timers and time cards:

Timers include:

Free apps for Outlook/365 and Windows 10

Free web apps: Zapier, Google Home and Amazon Alexa

My daily time entries – timers in a timesheet

Time cards include:

Time clock kiosk for location based tracking

Who is on the Clock – real time GPS tracking

By now I hope this article has enabled you to make a decision on what’s best for your business, but if you’re still not sure, reach out to our support team.

Support is always free at eBillity and we love speaking to our valued customers so let our product specialists help you.